


Whispers From A Watchtower

by lindsey_grissom



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You can't fight this for me, you can't save me this time</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers From A Watchtower

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions Judgement Day revelations.

I watch you with them and it's hard to think you'll even miss me. Which is probably stupid and selfish, but maybe, possibly true.

It's no reflection on you; if I'm unnoticeable now it must be something I've done. You always saw me before; that first meeting and the last. But then, I wasn't trying this time; these last few months. I've been busy, and you've been…_happy_. You all have. That's good.

I don't begrudge you that, I couldn't. I lo– _care_ too much to wish you anything else.

But I'm allowed self-pity now, I think. I've never desired it before, it's had no place in my life, but then, it's never been quite like this; never this bad. This final.

But you haven't noticed and that just means I'm better at lying than you think.

It doesn't mean you're not looking. I have to believe that. You're a kind of constant in my life; even when you're not there, you are. Always seeing more than you should, but not this, which makes it my fault, not yours.

I didn't think I wanted you to know. Whatever we are now, it isn't that. Your pity is the one kind I don't need. But I have to wonder; would I have gotten more?

I don't want to think about it, but it's always been hard to deny myself when it comes to you. I know you and I can predict you better than anyone. You would have been there, you would have made me take those tests earlier. You would have made me get fourth and fifth opinions, then forced me to accept. You would have tried to find something you could blame; something you could fight and win.

That's why you still don't know. It's why I'm up here watching instead of by your side. Because you can't fight this for me, you can't save me this time no matter how you might try. And that failure would kill a part of you just as surely as this will get me.

And I won't watch that again. I've seen it too many times. I saw it in my father's eyes when my mother succumbed to the darkness, I saw you fading before Mexico. I saw it all those years ago when I walked away and tried so hard not to look back.

I can't see that again, not this time.

It's wrong, I know, but I don't want to be here to see anything else die in your eyes. And maybe this way you'll hate me enough to stop that happening.

Or am I giving myself too much credit; thinking this could hurt you that hard?

But I've seen your eyes when you look at me, that stare that says we could be so much more again, if only I would let us try.

But I won't. Not now. This disease is going to take me and it won't be enough time. It will never be enough time if I'm back in your arms.

I've reached a sort of peace, but one touch of your hands on me, one taste of your lips with mine and I'll want to change my fate all over again.

And it can't be done.

It would tear me apart more fully than any missed chances ever could; wanting to stay with you, _for you_, only to fail.

I hate the part of me that lets the tears fall at the new regrets I'm half building. The new bricks I'm adding to the wall I placed between us.

That part of me will always belong to you, I'll just never tell you. It doesn't mean you'll never know, not if you remember hard enough, in time.

I'll stand up here and watch you from the shelf I've worked so hard to reach. I'll look at you and them and I'll wonder what could be, if I didn't love you this much; if I could put my pleasure above your heart.

I'll watch you, and hope until my last breath that you won't miss me enough to break.

 

**End.**


End file.
